


Like the Rising Sun

by avulle



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Idiots in Love, Kinda, Light Angst, Suicidal Ideation, but like, conspicuously absent melog, maladjusted coping mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:21:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24464122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avulle/pseuds/avulle
Summary: It’s hard to get to the roof of Brightmoon.The top of the tallest tower, back to the Bright Spire.Above the moonstone.Above anything for miles and miles.It’s hard to get up here.Above it all.But it’s not impossible.(Catra has a bad night, and hides on the roof of the tallest tower in Brightmoon.)
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 182





	Like the Rising Sun

**Author's Note:**

> tw: suicidal ideation (probably)
> 
> I read [Here Comes the First Day](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1755943), which just felt so emotionally raw and honest it inspired me to also write something emotionally raw, and honest. (Except more maladjusted and worse >.>) Before I wrote this, I was stuck in a bit of writer’s block, where everything I wrote felt like a miserable chore, but writing this reminded me of what had me so hooked for the first few fics I wrote for this fandom in the first place, which was that these idiots are just so stupid for each other and this world is so… pure and good and I love it. I had kind of forgotten about that.
> 
> I have unilaterally decided the head quarters of the Crimson Raiders is called the “Crimson Carnival”, because I wanted a short name. Also, I made the Bright Spire up.

It’s hard to get to the roof of Brightmoon.

The top of the tallest tower, back to the Bright Spire.

Above the moonstone.

Above anything for miles and miles.

It’s hard to get up here.

Above it all.

But it’s not impossible.

It’s louder here, than her perch on the top of Fright Zone had been.

Louder than the roof of the Crimson Carnival.

The wind screams past her ears like the roar of a wild animal.

Loud enough to make her want to clap her hands over ears, but so loud that wouldn’t do any good.

Almost loud enough to drown out her thoughts, but not quite.

She’d expected it to be quiet, if she was honest.

There is no one screaming, in Brightmoon.

No pistons rattling away into the night.

No gunfire from drills that never end.

She wonders if the wind had always been there in the Forght Zone.

Buried under the screams and the gunfire and the rattle of a thousand pistons all firing at once.

She came up here to get away from the noise.

Sometimes, Catra wakes up, and Adora’s little snores are just too loud.

Her arms around Catra too warm.

The scars in Adora’s back just a little too raw.

She just has to run.

But in the castle there is a woman she killed on every wall.

In the gardens there are twisted black flowers tucked away in every hedge.

The forest.

There are just too many memories of too many things, in the forest.

So she finds herself up here.

Nestled against the bright spire, surrounded by the roaring of the wind.

Perfuma says to meditate, you need to focus on the world around you.

Focus on your senses.

But unless the wind’s screaming in her ear, she can’t hear it over her own thoughts.

And some nights.

Some nights, even the roaring of the wind isn’t enough to drown it out.

Used to be Shadow Weaver’s voice.

Telling her she’d never be good for anything.

That the happiness she’d found would never last.

Now.

Now it’s her own voice.

Telling her she doesn’t deserve any of this.

_ Just think of everything  _ you _ did. _

_ Everything  _ we _ did. _

She wants Shadow Weaver’s voice back.

The wind rips and pulls at her, buffeting her back and forth and back forth.

She has to dig her claws into the metal of the roof to keep from being blown off.

The first scars in their unblemished surface.

Catra curls her tail and her arms around her legs, and looks down at the vast expanse of Brightmoon so so far down below her.

_ You wanted to burn this down _ , that voice inside of her hisses to her, in her own voice.

_ They’d be better if without you. _

Catra tightens her grip on her own arms, and tucks her face into her knees.

This will pass, she tells herself.

The sun will rise, and you’ll look back and you’ll think about how stupid you were for believing this.

It’s what she’s told herself every time she’s ended up on this tower, staring down and down and down at Brightmoon.

It’s what she’s told herself every time and every time and it’s been true.

It’s what she’s told herself every time, and not a single time has it convinced her.

What if.

What if it’s different, this time.

Or, sometimes.

More commonly, now that it’s happened so many times.

What if it just keeps on happening.

Every week.

Every month.

For the rest of her life.

When would that be enough.

When would that be too much.

More than she can bear.

Catra clenches her eyes closed, and presses her bony knees into her eyes sockets until she sees stars behind her eyes.

Catra tries to cry.

Everyone tells her it’s therapeutic.

But she just.

Can’t.

Nothing more than a couple tears, each harder than the last, like she’s wringing it out of her cold, dry heart.

She opens her eyes, looks down and down and down at Brightmoon below her.

Then she looks away.

Up and up and up at the spire above her.

_ Someone _ , she thinks.

_ Please. _

_ Help me. _

Like she didn’t run away from everyone on her own damn legs.

Hide on the top of the tallest damn tower.

Like she didn’t have every opportunity to ask someone for help.

And refused.

Because she wanted to be miserable.

Revel in her own self-hatred.

Catra drops her hands to the tower on either side of her, and clenches her claws in the metal.

She revels in the sound of it.

The screech of it.

The knowledge that she is destroying something beautiful.

Below her, down and down and down in Brightmoon, over the ridge of the roof, Catra sees a spark.

A flash, like someone is lighting the tower up with a spotlight.

It flashes, bright and white and all encompassing, and then fades, back down to nothing.

Catra turns back to the spire above her, twists the metal a little bit more, and the light returns.

A white halo, along the edge of the roof before her.

Faint at first, but slowly growing stronger.

Like the horizon, just before sunrise.

Little by little, then faster and faster until Adora emerges from the lip of the roof in full She-Ra mode, like the fucking rising sun.

Her brilliant blue eyes flicker over the expanse of the roof before her, before her eyes fall on Catra, and her entire face lights up.

“Hey, Catra,” she says, standing on nothing. She steps forward, her foot falling heavily onto their shared roof, and Catra can feel the footstep shake all the way through her.

The impact of the footstep shakes the words from her, and she is left speechless as She-Ra steps fully onto the rooftop, and continues.

“Fancy seeing you here,” her voice lilting and teasing, like—

Like she hadn’t just.

Like she hadn’t just materialized.

When Catra needed her most.

Catra covers her mouth with her hand, and can’t meet the brilliance of Adora’s brilliant blue gaze.

If Adora notices, she doesn’t say, her heavy footsteps clanking closer and closer, until Catra is no longer physically capable of not seeing her, her bulk in the corner of Catra’s vision, and the light that shines from her skin illuminating the bright green metal she has chosen to stare at.

Adora crouches down right there, an inch from Catra’s clasped hands, close enough Catra can feel the heat of Adora’s body through her fur.

Slowly, gently, Adora’s massive She-Ra-hand comes into her view, and she sets it on Catra’s cheek.

Catra turns her face into it, away from Adora’s face, and for a moment, Adora’s thumb just brushes along the fur of her cheek, before she slowly, inexorably turnsCatra’s gaze to meet hers.

When Catra sees the compassion and the love in Adora’s eyes, and her bone dry tear ducts take that moment to decide to overflow.

The tear ducts that never let her find any solace alone, every tear a test of fucking endurance, but one look at Adora looking at her like that, and the floodgates open.

“Didn’t you think,” Catra says, choking on her own tears, “that I might have wanted to be alone.”

The last words come out in a hiss, but if Adora minds she doesn’t show it.

“No,” she says, tears beginning to form in her eyes. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

Because this is what Catra does.

Run.

Hide.

So that Adora has to come look for her.

So Adora has to prove how much she gives a shit to find her.

Just like she scratched Adora, to make Adora prove that she loved her by taking it.

Because Catra may be twenty fucking years old, but she hasn’t changed a bit.

She was a horrible friend and now she’s a horrible fucking girlfriend.

Catra’s chest is wracked by a wet, ugly sob, and Adora’s face crumples in return.

“I’m sorry,” Catra says.

“No no no,” Adora says, falling to her knees and pulling Catra against her. “Catra retracts her claws so she can scrabble futilely at Adora’s back.

“Why can’t I just—“

She is interrupted by her own hacking sob.

“Don’t apologize,” Adora says, her massive She-Ra arms strong against Catra’s back. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

And what a fucking lie that is, but Catra cannot, in this moment, bring herself to refuse it.

Because what if.

What if she says it.

And that’s what finally makes Adora realize it.

That she deserves something…

Better than this.

So Catra just curls her fingers in the delicate white fabric of She-Ra’s beautiful white shirt thing and does her best to ruin it with her tears.

And, like always.

Being buried in Adora’s arms, catra slowly comes to realize how wrong that voice in her head is.

She fucked up.

But she’s doing better.

She’s done better.

She  _ is _ better.

Her hands, on Adora’s back, have their claws sheathed.

Adora is crying because Catra is crying, and not because Catra hurt her.

Eventually, she might even stop running away, so that she can see Adora chase her.

Slowly, Catra releases her grip on Adora’s back and falls back against the bright spire.

She sniffles, and Adora sniffles back.

Adora smiles a wet smile at her, still shining on her like Catra’s own personal sun, and Catra does her best to smile back.

“Since when can you fly?”

Adora’s smile turns bashful.

“Like… a week ago?” Adora bites awkwardly on her lower lip. “Glimmer and I have been working on it.” She looks up at Catra, and away again. “It was gonna be a present. For your… birthday…”

They don’t have birthdays, so they’ve picked their own.

Catra’s is next Wednesday.

Because of course Adora would procrastinate until the week before.

“You we’re going to fly as a present… for me?”

Adora squirms in embarrassment.

“I was gonna…” her voice drifts away as she awkwardly sticks her arms in Catra’s direction.

Catra watches as Adora slips one hand under Adora’s knees, the other around her shoulders.

Catra looks up into Adora’s face still not looking at her, as Catra pushes herself to her feet, like Catra doesn’t weigh a thing.

“Because you always liked heights?” Adora says, and Catra blinks as the roof begins to fall away beneath her. “So I thought, maybe? I could take you to the tallest point in Brightmoon?”

Catra looks up at Adora’s face still all twisted up and bright red, and.

Adora never did understood why Catra always liked to climb onto roofs, did she?

It’s probably…

It’s probably for the best.

Maybe Catra will tell her.

Someday.

She slowly wraps her hands around Adora’s bright red neck, and pulls Adora’s gaze to her with a hand on her cheek.

Catra does her best so smirk, even though she’s sure her eyes are bright red, and all of her face fur is still matted down by her own tears.

“And what were you gonna do, when we got to the highest point in Brightmoon?”

Adora’s eyes skate away again, but she doesn’t pull away from Catra’s hand.

“Whatever—“ Adora says, as they come to a stop. “Whatever you wanted.”

The wind screams around them, rough and biting and strong, whipping Adora’s long blonde hair into a mess, but Adora’s arms around her are strong, and there is not even an ounce of her that fears that Adora will drop her.

“Anything I want, huh?” Catra says, doing her best to purr out the words, even if her breath still catches on the edges of her words. She removes her hand from Adora’s cheek, and crosses her hands behind Adora’s neck, pulling her down closer.

Adora’s red rimmed eyes meet Catra’s, and she nods.

“Were you gonna kiss me, up here where no one can see us?”

Adora nods again.

“Well?”

Catra folds her arms at the elbow behind Adora’s neck, and raises her eyebrows expectantly.

Like they don’t do this literally every day, Adora slowly lifts Catra up to her as she drops her face to Catra’s and presses their lips together.

Catra pulls Adora’s head closer, and opens her lips against Adora’s.

It’s not too dirty, but it’s not terribly chaste either, and when they part the color in Adora’s cheeks is no longer of embarrassment.

Catra takes a moment to look below them, and finds Adora not floating but on the top of the Brightspire, because she’s a dramatic doofus like that, with Brightmoon so, so small below them.

And, Catra has to admit, the view is spectacular.

But, she thinks, turning back to where Adora is smiling kind of hesitantly down at her, the view is better looking up.

“I was expecting something a little more dramatic,” Catra says, and the hitches in her voice are almost gone, almost letting her purr her words out.

“We were… We were gonna kiss as we flew up.”

Catra smiles.

“Were we?”

“But now we’re all the way at the top, and…”

“All the way at the top?” Catra asks, pretending to look above them for a ceiling. “It looks like we’ve still got a ways to go to me.”

Adora looks up, momentarily distracting Catra with the long, lightly muscled expanse of her neck, and then she looks down at Catra, and grins.

The wind screams around them, whipping their hair all around them, but moving Adora not an inch, and Catra has never felt safer.

“Happy birthday,” Adora says, slowly leaning down to Catra, as the world starts falling further away beneath them, and pressing their lips together.

“It’s not my birthday, yet, doofus,” Catra whispers against Adora’s lips.

“Oh right ,” Adora says, their lips brushing together with every word. She presses their lips together, quick and chaste, like she couldn’t help herself. “In that case,” she says, “I love you.”

She muffles Catra’s reciprocation with her lips, and Catra closes her eyes.

Listens to the scream of the wind all around them, Adora’s warm arms around her, Adora’s lips against her own.

They break apart again, higher still, the air noticeably cooler around them.

“This is the best birthday present I’ve ever had,” Catra says, surveying the whole damn world, laid out around them.

“It’s the first birthday present you’ve ever had,” Adora responds with a laugh.

And.

Yeah.

But considering she could have said “I’m happier than I’ve ever been,” she’s pretty sure that even if the Horde had done things as frivolous as birthday parties, and birthday presents, it’d still be true.

**Author's Note:**

> Over-sharing time.
> 
> There is... a lot of me, in this fic's Catra. Like, definitely too much.
> 
> Normally I write Catra more well-adjusted because it lets me do sillier and funner things with her, but sometimes you just gotta express yourself through angst, y'know?
> 
> Also. If you're depressed, and pissed at the world, don't run away from the people you care about and who care about you to see if they'll chase you. In my experience, they won't, but it's not because they don't care about you. They're just not psychic. Also, it's kinda mean.
> 
> ...anyways Melog is conspicuously absent because I honestly have no idea how to write them. They'd also be inconvenient for my angst-fest.


End file.
